Game quality

What each result was worth beyond the score. Every play is graded by EPA (expected points added), then adjusted for who it came against: a defence's rating is what it allowed to everyone else that season, so a big day against a bad defence counts for less. Season views include playoff games.

Joe Burrow — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.026
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.015
Dropbacks
388
Turnover EPA
-33.7
WPA
+0.54
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CLE 33 -0.476 -0.565 +0.088 -15.7 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -6.0 -0.33 -18.2
2BAL 42 +0.114 +0.037 +0.077 +4.8 1 / 0 -6.6 1 -1.6 +0.03 +2.4
3LA 50 -0.155 -0.131 -0.024 -7.7 1 / 0 -4.1 2 -2.8 -0.11 -12.6
4TEN 33 -0.317 -0.267 -0.050 -10.5 0 / 1 -6.0 3 -10.0 -0.12 +6.5
5ARI 49 +0.112 +0.194 -0.082 +5.5 1 / 0 -3.7 3 -4.5 +0.45 +9.7
6SEA 38 -0.141 -0.087 -0.054 -5.4 1 / 0 -3.3 3 -4.5 -0.13 -1.4
8SF 35 +0.462 +0.383 +0.079 +16.2 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.8 +0.21 +17.6
9BUF 45 +0.323 +0.281 +0.042 +14.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.1 +0.36 +6.0
10HOU 44 +0.088 +0.073 +0.015 +3.9 2 / 0 -10.0 4 -7.7 +0.13 +4.3
11BAL 19 +0.230 +0.153 +0.077 +4.4 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.0 +0.07 -4.2
Opponent adjustment. A unit's rating for a game is its average over its other games that season, blended with 16 games' worth of prior (league average plus half of last season's gap from it; 24 games for pass defence, which is noisier). Early in a season that leans on last year; by midseason it is mostly this year. Chosen by how well it predicts a held-out game: it cut that error by about a quarter against no shrinkage, and adjusted numbers agree between odd and even weeks more than raw ones do (team EPA margin r 0.52 → 0.55, defence 0.32 → 0.36, QB EPA/dropback 0.47 → 0.49, 2016–2025).
Win expectancy is a logistic fit of wins on EPA margin over 6,036 completed games (it names the winner 86.5% of the time). These describe what happened; one game is not a forecast. Play-by-play credits the quarterback with every sack and dropback, so a bad line shows up in his numbers. Seasons 2016–2026, built 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.